'An ongoing process' - Hillary Clinton opens up to Hilary Barry about dealing with losing the 2016 US election to Donald Trump

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Hillary Clinton has ruled out running in the 2020 US presidential election but says she'll be "very active" in this year's mid-term elections.

Seven Sharp’s Hilary asks the first woman to run for US President about Donald Trump and Jacinda Ardern.
Source: Seven Sharp

The former US Secretary of State, former First Lady and America's first ever female presidential candidate spoke to Hilary Barry on TVNZ1's Seven Sharp ahead of a speech at Auckland's Spark Arena tonight.

Now free from the constraints of public office, Ms Clinton is touring the globe, speaking frankly about what it was like to run in the most controversial US presidential election of all time in 2016.

Asked would she run again, Ms Clinton replied: "No, No. But I am going to be very active in this upcoming election in 2018 because that will be the turning point."

The mid-term elections in November will take place in the middle of President Donald Trump's term. All 435 seats in the US House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested.

Hillary Clinton was the odds on favourite to take out the US presidency in 2016, but in one of the most surreal moments in American political history she lost on election night a-year-and-a half-ago to businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump.

"It's so important that you have more in your life to lift you up and get you going again than whatever the setback happened to have been," she said.

"So I am lucky in that way because I have a wealth of great friends, family relationships that are incredibly supportive and nurturing. But it would be inaccurate to say I wasn't devastated because I was devastated because I didn't expect it.

"I wasn't ready for it and it's an ongoing process. Our country has not yet resolved it. People say 'why haven't you moved on?' Well there are tens of millions who haven't moved on because there are still so many unanswered questions," Ms Clinton said.

She said: "That election was a perfect storm - there were so many factors and I'm very clear in the book I take my share in the responsibility for not having been successful.

"But I think if you look at all of the forces that were at work in that campaign - everything from sexism and misogyny to Russian interference, information and disinformation - it's important that we understand what happened because it will keep happening."

During her speaking engagements on this tour, Ms Clinton draws on events in her book 'What Happened'.